[4:30 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Fed Watch Week Begins & Apple Soars
by Wes George
As we head into two days of Fed meetings to decide the fate of interest rates the Nasdaq toyed with the 4000 level and the Dow rally. It appears that most investors believe the Fed won't raise interest rates this month, but instead take a wait and see posture until their August 22nd meeting. Nevertheless, the sidelines of the market are packed with buyers waiting for a thumbs up. Wow, Apple traded nicely higher, up almost 5%.
As the Wall Street Journal spins it: "The market's expectations about interest rates persisted despite economic data released Monday that showed sales of existing homes rose in May, contrary to evidence from other recent data the US economy has started to slow."
Apple jumped 2 7/16 to close at 54 1/8 on volume of 3.3 million shares to retain its upward momentum after sagging for two days. Macworld is close enough for Steve Job's reality distortion field to support the positive price-per-share trend put in place by last week's stock split. But don't expect AAPL not to slide if Macworld contains no pleasant surprises for fickle investors.
Forbes, the business rag, has always been out to get Apple for reasons unknown. But even they can't think of a diss for Mac OS X, "OS X is building buzz among early beta testers, who think it could do for the look of operating systems what Apple has done to the style of PC hardware. "It's so luscious you could lick it," says International Data's (Roger) Kay. A public beta version will be available later this summer." Gee, Roger you're grossing me out. ;->)
The Nasdaq climbed 66 points (1.74%) to closed at 3912 on volume of 1.3 billion shares. Net stocks, especially the so-called b to c (business and consumers) stocks continued to suffer. Amazon (AMZN) is near a 52 week low at 33 15/16. Internet infrastructure stocks, those selling picks and axes to Web prospectors so to speak, soared.
The Dow rallied 138 points (1.33%) to close at 110542 on light volume of 887 million shares. Cyclical stocks (industrial stocks whose fortunes depend on whether economic growth is slowing or accelerating) continued to set new lows today, indicating the market expects the economy to slow going forward.
Today's big Old Economy story: Phillip Morris (MO) bought Nabisco (NA) for $55 per share. Yawn.
The S&P 500 gained 13.83 points (0.96%) to close at 1455.31.
The Mac Observer Stock Watch Virtual Portfolio Akamai soared by 16 3/4 to 119 1/4 boosting our portfolio along with Apple's strong day. Akamai's content delivery system has a huge future, but today's boost is due to Yahoo extending its business dealings with Akamai.
In Apple related businesses: Adobe traded up 6 15/16 to close at 54 1/8. Earthlink gained 1/2 to close at 15 1/16. Motorola slipped 2 9/16 to close at 29 13/16. IBM climbed 2 17/32 to 114 13/32.
Apple's competitors: Hewlett Packard gained 2 7/8 to 120 dollars. Gateway was down 7/8 to 57 3/8. Compaq fell 9/16 to close at 27 3/8. Shares of Microsoft climbed 1 13/16 to 79 1/2. Intel climbed slipped 3/16 to close at 134 3/16.
For full quotes on all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have many of these same quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report.
Apple
|
